Paul vs. Reid: An Epic Battle Over the PATRIOT Act

This week, the Senate floor was witness to a back-and-forth skirmish of political maneuvering and parliamentary gamesmanship between Senator Rand Paul and Senator Harry Reid over the reauthorization of the misnamed, unconstitutional PATRIOT Act.

In the end, Sen. Paul was only successful at getting a debate and a vote on two of the amendments he had proposed to the tyrannical legislation, despite Sen. Reid's promises that there would be a week of debate and an open amendment process, but Sen. Paul's efforts to push the issue as far as he could were valiant and admirable nonetheless.

We've put together a timeline of the blow-by-blow of how it all went down below. But first, some relevant videos:

2/3:

Rep. Ron Paul says in a video update that the Congress plans to extend some of the worst clauses of the PATRIOT Act as “quietly as possible.”

2/9:

Sen. Rand Paul posts a video and a statement stating his strong opposition to the extension and applauding the house for initially voting it down.

Sen. Paul threatens to filibuster the bill, so Sen. Reid makes a deal with Sen. Paul to pass a 90 day extension andpromises to have at least a week of debate and an open amendment process on the bill before the extension expires.